Rational Creativity

It is often thought that creativity is at the other end of the scale to
rationality. Rational thought is based on clear reason and logical
progression. Creativity, on the other hand, seems to be about intuition,
hunches and generally messing around until a magical idea pops out of
the ether and into your
head.

If you live on the rational side of the tracks I won't try to convert you to
fuzzy thinking, because I don't need to. You can solve problems that many might
think of as requiring creative thinking but doing so wearing only a rational
hat. To do this, there are three key stages:

Definition of the problem that you are seeking to solve.

Analysis of information available and gathered.

Identifying and proving the solution that you will implement.

In practice, whilst these phases may be clearly separate, they may also be
quite integrated with moving back and forth between them, for example
re-defining the problem when analysis sheds new light on it. Analysis and
solution identification may also happen together as a systematic analysis
identifies a logical solution.

To further help you use logical methods, all the tools described on this site
have a 'logical-psychological' classification. Look for the ones with an 'X'
towards the left side of this table, such as:

Logical

X

Psychological

Definition

The first step in the process is to clarify what exactly you are seeking to
achieve. This may seem obvious but it is amazing the number of problem-solving
activities that go on without really nailing down the exact problem. This is
sometimes called 'scoping' as it identifies what is in and, importantly, what is
out of scope.

There are a number of tools on this site to help you
define the problem.
Perhaps the most logical of these include the decomposition of
breakdown and
chunking, although it is good idea to start
by asking 'What's it for?' to identify the fundamental
purpose. Other basic
questions can be used to help provide a
robust challenge.

Analysis

Next comes analysis, breaking down the situation further to find a focus for
action. The breakdown methods used in defining the problem can be further used
here. value analysis also provides
a detailed method for more structured analysis. Other analysis tools can be
taken from
'A Toolbook
for Quality Improvement and Problem Solving', for example mapping the system
with some form of
flowchart and usingFMEA
to identify critical failure points.

Two key
parts of analysis (also of definition and solution) is (a) gathering information
to give facts and understand a given domain, and (b) focusing down into areas
which need most attention and where most value can be gained. In summary, this
means understanding and challenging, including challenging of your own
understanding. What are assumed to be facts are often just educated opinions.

Solution

A good analysis will often make the solution easy as it is clear what
is not working. Identifying the solution may hence be trivial. But this
is not always so and further work may be needed.

Attribute listing is a great
method for breaking down and challenging though considering attributes of the
area in question. Still on the subject of attributes,
morphological analysis is a structured
method that came out of the Lear Jet Corporation. You can also force the
situation with assumption busting,
SCAMPER or
forced conflict, where you challenge
and push at the problem. Perhaps the ultimate engineering approach is
TRIZ, a Russian system based
on analysis of thousands of patents. This suits more physical problems and the
overall method contains others principles, such as using 'resources' that are
easily available.

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating', is an old saying, and the proof
of a solution is in the application. It is hence important to try out possible
solutions as soon as you can. Whilst something should work logically, in messy
reality it could be problematic, and such issues are best ironed out early on in
the process.